Statesman Quotes

A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it.

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.

A statesman wants courage and a statesman wants vision; but believe me, after six months' experience, he wants first, second, third and all the time - patience.

I am one of those who would rather sink with faith than swim without it.

I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason.

We must examine then the concerns of the Government of Japan about the language of the treaty itself - of SOFA - and of the interim and further arrangements that have been made since 1995, and see whether or not we need to make any changes. Those are decisions I cannot make.

It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.

I think and hope and believe that the Japanese government and the people of Japan will be happy and content with the progress of justice in this case and that it will not become a great issue in the future.

I intend to travel to Okinawa and to visit with Okinawa officials and the citizens of Okinawa at an early date. I will send my best analysis of that situation, including the local attitudes, back to Washington, to the government there.

Demography is changing us as we are older societies, we're living longer. How the generations balance each other out, how that affects education and health care.

Any time the United States government turns over an American citizen, including military personnel, to the government of another country, it is in our nature to want to make sure that they receive the best treatment, the fairest treatment, and the most humane treatment.

The most difficult thing in any negotiation, almost, is making sure that you strip it of the emotion and deal with the facts. And there was a considerable challenge to that here and understandably so.

There are no doubts that, the situation in the country today, indicates that there is much more work to do in the process of reforming the political economy and improving the quality of life of our people and communities.

The return of democracy in our land has indeed thrown the problems of development into bolder relief.

The history of our country is not the history of any other country in the world which is either practicing advanced democracy or struggling to lay the foundation for democracy.

The challenge as we saw in the Nigerian project was to restructure the economy decisively in the direction of a modern free market as an appropriate environment for cultivation of freedom and democracy and the natural emergence of a new social order.

Our choice of a reform framework dictated that we looked at the fundamental assumptions that had driven Nigeria's economy, society and policy hitherto and to seek ways of either abandoning or transcending those assumptions and their supporting institutions.

Our approach to economic development must be modern, focused and in tune with the global trend.

Most importantly, nothing has happened to change my conviction that freedom and the love of liberty remain the essential defining attributes of our national character as a people.

It is only through books that we partake of the great harvest that is human civilization across the ages.

It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line.

Informed by our sad experience of history, we require nothing short of a foundation for lasting democracy.

If you ask me to summarise our mission, I would put it this way: We were a military regime that sought to lay the foundations for freedom and liberty in a complex society.

I believe that historians and analysts of historical events need the authority of facts supplied by living witnesses to the events, which they make their subject.

We have established a new basis in our country in which economic liberalization would continue to flourish alongside democratic forces and deregulated power structure.

To meet the expectations of the majority of our people, and to open up new vistas of economic opportunity so that the aspirations of Nigerians can stand a fair chance of being fulfilled in a lifetime, there must be a truly committed leadership in a democratic Nigeria.

For as long as our people are held hostage by controllable socio-economic forces, we cannot afford to be indifferent to the ravages of poverty in all its dimensions and ramifications.

Democracy opens new vistas and opportunities. We should use the opportunities it offers to correct past mistakes not to blunder anew.

Each one of us, and, indeed, all those who aspire to national leadership must bring their own visions, views and styles to the business of reforming Nigeria, and the search for solutions.

The work of Nigeria is not complete for as long as there is any one Nigerian who goes to bed on empty stomach.